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Every fucking time:
It’s a distinction between “on-the-job training will suffice” and “no chance without years of prep.”
No shit anything worth paying a human for involves human skills. But some jobs are open to just about anyone who can put up with it, and some jobs kill people when you try to muscle through on sticktoitiveness. A fast food restaurant can bring some rando up-to-speed in a couple weeks. An ER cannot. The distinction is necessary.
Nitpicking the label misses the point:
All labor deserves a living wage.
It doesn’t fucking matter how difficult or complex a job is. If your business wants people’s time - you had better fucking pay them enough to be there next month. Otherwise, you don’t get to be a business.
Absolutely. I’m SUPER pro-worker, pro-union, etc., but unskilled labor isn’t a myth. There are some jobs that can be done with essentially no training or skills at all. These jobs should pay a living wage, because all jobs should. But that doesn’t change the fact that some jobs require little-to-no skill. I think that repeating this false claim actually HURTS the movement for fair wages, because it’s not a supportable argument.
I feel that the distinction is made wrong. All these labors shown may not require much of a formal education towards the job, but they all require skill that will be refined significantly over time.
- Somebody who works as a harvester for years is much faster at picking crops and much more efficient at seeing which are ready to harvest and which arent.
- Anybody who has kids knows that it takes years to traing them, how a properly cleaned house looks like.
- Cashiers who are familiar with the workings of the companys systems, who know the numbers of bread, produce and other non-barcoded goods by heart are much faster and have less situations requiring looking something up. This in particular are skills that simply require on the job time and experience. The same issue exists for engineering project managers who cannot learn all the PCA codes of their company in the first week.
- Everyone knows the difference between bar-staff that knows how to properly draw a beer and those who don’t.
- Fast food workers need to perform consistently in a high stress environment, and keeping taps on the fries, the burgers, three customers orders and dealing with the half-broken coffe machine is a skill many CEOs would lack. Same goes for waiters in restaurants
- Being a good brick-layer takes years of practice. A well built brick wall with consistent gaps and a smooth surface is difficult to achieve, and both aesthetically and structurally important.
- …
Finally many of these jobs also require social skills and provide socialisation as part of the experience. My favorite barkeeper manages not only to get everyone their drinks in a packed bar, but also chat with the regulars and newcomers while at it. People could just order take-away instead of going to a restaurant. But having a nice restaurant atmosphere is part of the experience and the result of good waiters and so on.
We accept experience as a relevant salary and position argument for “high skilled”, which should be called “high educated” labor. It is equally relevant in supposedly “low skilled” or “unskilled” labor.
Getting better at something you picked up in a month is not the same as needing years of training to even begin.
Experience is the opposite of the problem. The concept distinguishes jobs where people are fundamentally incapable of performing the task to bare-minimum standards, until they’ve been thoroughly educated, tested, and prepared. A doctor doing their first surgery has zero prior experience. It’s their first. But they are already an expert, in some capacity, thanks to abundant theory and practice.
Again: no kidding all jobs take skill. No kidding you can get better at things. But an experienced bartender does not make tending bar “skilled labor” so long as any line cook could be pressganged into it while that guy takes a dump.
But an experienced bartender does not make tending bar “skilled labor” so long as any line cook could be pressganged into it while that guy takes a dump.
And then he messes up the CO2 and the bar cannot serve for ten minutes, losing them plenty of money.
More importantly though, the concepts are not just distinguished like that. For the “skilled” labor, it is normal and expected, that experience is paid. People whose job description reads “senior” often make 30-50% more than what people who are considered "junior"s make, even though the education is the same. But this is not done in this way for the supposed “unskilled” labor, even though the productivity and hence the value of the labor to the employer does increase just as equally with experience on the job.
Finally, i work as an engineer. Quite frankly most of what the people in a typical corporate setting do, could be done with on the job training perfectly fine. The positions were specific knowledge is required from higher education are not only limited in number, but also in scope. As a result you could also train these in maybe half a year. And if i ask older colleagues about stuff from their studying time they usually just laugh, because they’ve forgotten most of it.
Oh no, losing money! Surely that’s the same kind of problem as killing people.
You’re not really listening.
Looks like you are driving a train you are not skilled for, with your derailing.
Employers pay employees money in exchange for work. That is the fundamental principle of wage labour. In a fair situation the employee’s wage reflects the value he provides to the company. This is denied to so called “unskilled” labour. You also want to deny it by overexpanding your example. Yes a doctor requires a lot of prior education. But if you think a surgeons first operation is on a live human, you are wrong. They train surgeries beforehand. Because with all the education, if the hands remained unskilled an educated doctor is still a deadly surgeon. On the flipside for a standard surgery it would be perfectly possible to train a nurse how to do it, and merely have a doctor supervise for unforseen medical aspects. And again, ask a knee surgeon after 20 years about heart diseases. Ask a cardiologist about knee surgeries. Both will have forgotten most of it.
But finally your arguement of killing people is a hyperbole. Do you know how many people die as the result of “unskilled” labor fucking up? The most deadly occupations like logging, farming, mining and construction are all requiring responsibility for protection of your own and other humans lifes, where proper experience and skill are crucial to maintain safety.
So while you talk about hypothetical unskilled doctors, the denial of skill needed in many occupations is actually killing people.
But if you think a surgeons first operation is on a live human, you are wrong. They train surgeries beforehand.
Read what I fucking wrote or don’t talk to me.
All labor deserves a living wage.
It doesn’t fucking matter how difficult or complex a job is. If your business wants people’s time - you had better fucking pay them enough to be there next month. Otherwise, you don’t get to be a business.
All labor that delivers value in excess of the wage deserves a living wage.
If you’re employing someone and losing money, that’s your stupid problem.
If you’re employing someone - they deserve a living wage. Or fuck off.
If you’re employing someone and losing money, that’s your stupid problem.
Correct, which is why the business left over don’t pay a living wage, otherwise it’s not economically viable and they disappear. Would you rather someone be unemployed (and receive no wage) vs a crummy job at which they can work towards getting higher pay?
Fuck off and take your false dilemma with you.
We cannot tolerate any job, however shite, paying less than a living wage. There’s no shortage of money. There’s no shortage of work to be done. “Businesses left over” are making record profits, right now. You can figure this out.
Fuck off.
i have known a not-insignificant amount of people who interepret the word ‘unskilled’ very literally. there are a lot of meanings these people hide behind the word ‘unskilled’, and they don’t mean ‘on-the-job training will suffice’, nor are they anywhere near that nice.
a doctor is highly-skilled, not merely skilled. i don’t see how describing someone’s livelihood as ‘unskilled’ can be — in any way — a good faith assessment in any constructive capacity.
Nitpicking the label misses the point:
All labor deserves a living wage.
people can care about more than one thing. i can care about the problematic language of economists while also believing everyone deserves to have their needs met.
You have known a not-insignificant amount of tribalist assholes. They don’t mean things when they say words. The natural shape of the universe, in their eyes, is a hierarchy where the bottom half must suffer, and they’ll make whatever mouth noises justify that foregone conclusion.
If I gave you all the time in the world to pick a better label and you chose one we both agreed was flawless then those assholes would invent some other stupid reason to make the exact same claim. That’s how they think arguments work. That’s all they think we’re doing. That’s all they think there is.
This label can’t justify poverty wages, because nothing justifies poverty wages. And if you renamed it, the people trying would keep trying. You have to recognize these assholes and stop taking their arguments seriously. They’re not arguments. They’re slogans.
If it wasn’t ‘they’re unskilled!’ it’d be ‘those jobs are for teenagers!’ or ‘but hamburgers will cost thirty dollars!’ or ‘robots will do it instead!’ and if you try engaging with any of those then you’ve already lost. These people don’t fucking care. Prove them wrong and nothing changes. You have to attack the conclusion, because that’s all they have.
i agree with everything you’ve written here. we don’t need a new term. i propose eliminating ‘unskilled labour’ from our collective vocabulary, because some people who aren’t completely far gone would stand to benefit from recognising this term as you put it: a slogan. i’m not saying i expect a huge amount of effort on this front. no campaigns, just awareness.
i don’t disagree with what you’ve written here; i’m disagreeing with your point in the GP, that:
The distinction is necessary.
it’s a concept that i believe is only useful to the managerial class (and other hierarchists). it isn’t constructive in labour organising.
The distinction is literally life and death, sometimes. I don’t call it necessary just because I think it’s neat.
The most ardent outright anarchists still need to distinguish jobs anyone can kinda do versus jobs with intense risk, impact, and/or time pressure. This is that term. You can pick a different one - but you cannot get rid of the concept, unless you want surgeons and architects who keep saying “oops.”
i also want to add that this ‘distinction’ — of who is easily replaceable — is only useful to certain classes that shouldn’t exist. it isn’t a term of what jobs can be easily replaced, it’s about what people can be easily replaced, and that’s unhelpful to the proletariat.
everywhere i’ve ever lived, ‘unskilled labour’ was used more as a slur than an economic term.
It just means “no prior knowledge required”. It’s not a myth lol
Even McDonalds trains you to use the equipment before they let you use it.
… which is usually a matter of hours, not several years of academic studies
See the difference ?
Want someone to sweep the floor ? You can quite literally grab some one off the street and tell them to do it, with some amount of success.
Your words:
It just means “no prior knowledge required”
If you need to be trained, then I guess McDonald’s is skilled labor.
Then why is it justified to pay people poverty wages? Your answer doesn’t cover that.
I didn’t claim it was justified?
It doesn’t cover that because it didn’t cover that. You don’t have to address the totality of a situation to comment on it. Lemmy is particularly bad at this concept.
A comment is a comment, not a through rebuttal
Strawman fallacy. They (Dangblingus) tried to argue with a completely different topic to try and discredit the argument, without acknowledging the difference.
Edit: since everyone interpreted this wrong.
The statement has two clauses, are you saying we’re not allowed to acknowledge corrections to clause A without also addressing clause B?That seems a little silly, I’d think you’d strive for the most accurate overall statement, and corrections to either clause should be welcome.You can offer an objectively true correction without addressing the entire argument, can you not?EDIT: I misunderstood the comment - disregard this.
If someone stated they like the color blue, and another person states that red is better, asserting that the first person hates red. That would be a stawman.
Op stated unskilled labor means no prior experience.
Comment stated then why is it ok to give slave wages.
OP was not making an argument about wages. Making the comment a starwman since they are arguing a point that was unrelated to the original argument.
Ah, okay, I thought the straw man accusation was pointed at the fellow defining unskilled labor. My bad!
I get you. Ya I was supporting GBU, not saying they were making the stawman.
Lol nope
Nope what? You didn’t make the strawman guy.
God damn right I didn’t.
I guess you left out the brackets in the first version - I have to admit I misread it even then.
Only commenting to let you know that your edit succeeded in at least one case, no matter the points! ♥
Then why is it justified to pay people poverty wages?
The actual problem isn’t that the wages are low, but that the standard for living is so expensive. That happens because of government decisions: zoning restrictions, bureacracy, high taxes to mention a few. These decisions always hurt the lowest income bracket the worst while benefitting the higher brackets. If we let markets flow naturally, things like this would be greatly improved.
Trying to fix all that with rising minimum wage is like trying to fix a dam you built out of straws with bubble gum.
LMAO no, taxes used correctly would end up solving most of these problems. Government influence in housing markets would solve these problems.
Letting Nestle draw even more drinking water to turn into mountain dew doesnt.Government influence in housing markets would solve these problems.
You can argue about other points about bureaucracy and taxation perhaps but government influence in housing markets literally creates the problem in the first place, consistently every time it has been done. And all of these instances have been documented and can be verified from data. It’s completely uncontroversial.
Also, you have a rectal issue. You should look into that.
LMAO you are delusional.
The housing market in the US is fucked because we let people do whatever the fuck they want.deleted by creator
I think unskilled there just implies no prerequisite knowledge required
That’s just entry level. There’s plenty of entry level skilled labor out there.
Because it’s unskilled.
I could walk into McDonald’s tomorrow and in a day have nearly every thing I’ll ever need for the job.
“Unskilled” and “requiring no previous qualificatuons” aren’t the same thing. Even “unskilled” labor can have many qualifications, even if most people would meet said qualifications. Hell, some people even don’t meet the qualifications for McDonalds for various reasons that are unrelated to skill. And similarly labor that requires no previous qualifications can still be labelled “unskilled”.
The difference here is that you can go into McDonald’s and learn on the job with little to no difficulty in the process.
“Patties are found in the freezer here. Go into the freezer, grab a box, put it here, take out and put 9 on the grill, grab these salt & pepper shakers and shake once overtop and then press this button; once it beeps it’s done and you throw them all into this warmer here.” Jobs been mainly taught and you can rock that for a whole shift.
OP is using McDonald’s as it’s pretty universal to know the basics of life on that part. Like how to press a button, what a freezer is, how to carry something and how to move objects without ruining things.
Go ahead and try to teach someone how to be a doctor/dentist with the same common knowledge. Or how to get someone to program an application when they only know how to turn on an iPad and open an app.
Difficulty is subjective. Like yeah, to me and most people the jobs labelled “unskilled labour” are going to be easy and being a doctor or dentist is going to be hard, nobody’s arguin that. But it gets a lot fuzzier when you start getting into seemingly low-skilled jobs which are put at higher value and labelled “skilled labor”, and seemingly high-skilled jobs which are put at lower value and labelled “unskilled labor”. This is especially apparent with manual labor (including some trades).
Plus it completely ignores the fact that things that are hard to one person can come extremely easily to another, and vice versa. Not every fast food employee can be a lawyer, but not every lawyer can be a fast food employee. Surprisingly, employers for “low-skill” jobs can be very picky with employees. And there exists extremely low-skill lawyers just like there exist extremely low-skill fast food employees. Same with teachers. The only difference in this case is that being a lawyer requires you to pay tens to hundreds of thousands for a degree, so the barrier for entry is artificially higher for poorer people.
Right now the case is mostly just that jobs considered low-value by society are called “unskilled labor” while jobs considered high-value by society are called “skilled labor” despite not being higher in actual skill used or required. Even disregarding manual labor, I wouldn’t consider my office job particularly high skill, it has a low barrier to entry and anyone could reasonably get a similar position with very little time investment, but it’s lumped into “skilled labor” just because it pays a lot and people don’t view it with a stigma like they do with low-paying jobs. Hell a lot of middle managers know absolutely nothing about the job of the people they manage, but they get labelled as “skilled laborers” anyways.
I always appreciate your perspectives, but this comment really meanders. Bit of a force, this one
Difficulty has nothing to do do with skilled or unskilled labor. Skilled labor is labor that requires formal training and/or significant experience, unskilled labor usually entails on the job training that lasts less than a week.
What are the high skilled jobs that are labeled unskilled labor?
Farmworkers, custodians, construction workers, and similar manual labor are labelled as “unskilled labor” yet they generally require a lot of training to do correctly. And paradoxically other trades are seen as highly skilled jobs, despite requiring a similar level of experience or training.
Also in fast food training generally lasts more than a week. Idk where you got the “lasting one week” figure. And similarly, a significant portion of “skilled labor” jobs have no training at all (as I said, office jobs often don’t have any training whatsoever even for entry-level positions).
Different job positions of the same type or in the same field require different amounts of training, expertise, etc., and trying to generalize them into categories based on what one feels is right is pretty much just a method to demean/stigmatize certain types of labor.
And by the way, difficulty being subjective is relevant because someone who finds little difficulty in a certain area may take very little to no training to be qualified for a “skilled” job, while someone who finds great difficulty in the area will take much training to be qualified for an “unskilled” job. There are plenty of people who initially have trouble doing tasks that you and I think of as simple and requiring little skill. Many “unskilled” jobs require people skills too, on the account that they have to deal with the worst behaved humans imaginable on a regular basis and get around that. Those especially require you to have a lot of skill often times, not unlike how necessary communication skills are in some skilled labor jobs (a tech position may be practically entirely built around communication and the actual “tech” part matters little).
Entry level means something different for every field. An entry level cook and an entry level engineer have two different sets of expectations for the employee.
All of which are skilled labor
You are confusing chefs with cooks. Line cooks are hired with no experience or training, the same cannot be said for chefs.
You are confusing line cooks with dishwashers. No one hires a line cook that has no experience or training.
No experience necessary for line cooks.
You’re talking to an actual chef with over 20 years of hiring experience. You don’t hire line cooks with no experience.
The term being changed to mean something else by whoever is writing these articles is the real crime; how do you not understand what unskilled labor means? Changing the term isn’t going to earn you better compensation for something that doesn’t require formal or specialized education. Get over it.
Thank heavens we stopped hiring unskilled labor.
Anyway, back to hiring from a talent pool that is as wide as possible due to a lack of barriers to entry because no particular requirements are necessary for employment and thus we can get away with paying the bare minimum and still getting enough job applicants. If only there was a word for that scheme…
Maybe if they were called “jobs that don’t require years of training” instead.
Though I agree in principle. Just because a full-time job doesn’t require years of training, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t pay at least a living wage.
Nooo. But it’s a conservative myth those jobs don’t require training!!!11 Try reading meme again
Does the label even matter?
When lots of people would do the job, and many even for less than you, why not hire someone else for less?
When you’re the only one who qualifies, the situation reverses. Why bless that company with your work, when you can go to someone else who pays more?
Maybe it’s all just supply and demand within the limits of regulation.
I think calling it a surplus labour or something similar would be more descriptive.
Something that gets across that it is not an ‘in demand’ labour, which is the real reason it’s low paid.
Note. I’m not saying it’s right that it’s low paid, just talking through the issue of why it is.
Yes, talking about is, not ought.
Something that gets across that it is not an ‘in demand’ labour, which is the real reason it’s low paid.
Similarly, we see astonishingly low wages for ridiculously high skilled work, for example scientists.
Maybe it’s really all about unvalued labour. Or surplus labour, as you say. While having rare skills is no guarantee for being valued, lacking those surely doesn’t help in getting more value either. So I think there is a correlation between unskilled and low pay, even if it’s not a direct cause.
It’s supply and demand. Scientists publish their discoveries to the commons, so there isn’t much demand for people to hire them. Many would-be scientists go into fields like finance and engineering specifically just for the pay (fields that are in demand, but have low supply). Science is a public good, so a market failure occurs.
“Unskilled labor” is labor that many can do or learn on the job, so there is a high supply. It doesn’t matter how hard or essential the work is, it’s going to be low pay due to the low barrier of entry. Which is unjust, and Why Socialism (Einstein) is needed.
Yeah I agree.
In demand labour makes sens as a term to me.
In supply labour doesn’t have the same meaning to me when I say it out loud. That’s why I liked the term ‘surplus labour’ because it implies there is a surplus of people who can do the job, driving down how much people are paid for it.
Thank you for supplying all this valuable context, honestly.
That’s not surplus labor. Surplus labor is employed people who don’t have things to do. Or unemployed people who are able and want to work, if you’re taking about the market broadly.
And scientists are low paid at the start - and higher paid later, just like doctors and architects and plenty of people who have tremendous lifetime earning potential.
Scientists in academia are hit or miss wage wise, but have a high quality of life. Plenty of private sector scientists make $$$.
There’s tons of demand for unskilled labor. There’s also tons of supply because literally almost everyone can do it.
There’s lots of demand sure, but the amount of demand doesn’t outweigh the amount of people that are available to do it, like other jobs. This is why I went with the word surplus. There’s a surplus of people that can do the job
When the ability to learn said skill is gatekept by the wealthy it ceases to be supply and demand
So make a meme about education should be free. There will always be unskilled labor. I can show someone how to use a lawn mower in 20 minutes, or screw caps on a tube in an assembly line.
I don’t need to pay someone extra to go to school for 4 years to do those jobs.
This is a pretty shortsighted comment.
Never, in the history of the world, has it been easier and cheaper (free in many cases) to learn a new skill. Have you heard of this thing called the internet where there are thousands of free courses teaching anything and everything?
Planting? That’s your example of a desirable skill? Free courses will get you nowhere financially or otherwise. You need verifiable certificates and licenses.
Planting was a typo. Fixed that.
For many careers you do not need certs or licenses. Almost every role in big tech can be self taught. Programming, SQA, systems engineering, business analyst, project management, and on and on can all be self taught. I say this as I work with a number of folks that do not have college degrees.
I agree that would be unfair or however you want to judge it, but I don’t see how your conclusion follows.
It does not matter if the acquisition of qualification is gatekept, subsidized, free or restricted. Either way, you have a pool of people who are qualified for a job, and that pool has a size. Smaller pool roughly correlates with higher pay.
It’s supply and demand, regardless of why the pool has it’s size.
I also think it has never been that easy to learn things. Wikipedia, YouTube, social media … sharing skills, following your interests, learning whatever you’d like to learn … imagine you had to ask your dad for permission or be accepted into a guild for it.
Poverty wages are paid to workers that are highly fungible.
The concept of unskilled labor refers to tasks that require little or no specialized training or knowledge to perform. This can include manual labor or work that requires very basic skills. In reality, this type of work has existed for centuries, long before capitalism emerged as an economic system. For instance, agricultural work during the feudal era falls under the category of unskilled labor. Even today, there are numerous industries with high demand for such workers, from construction sites to warehouses.
Regarding the claim that unskilled labor is a “capitalist myth,” it’s important to note that while capitalism does promote a competitive market where businesses strive to minimize their costs (including labor), this concept has existed since the beginning of human civilization. It is not exclusive to capitalism. However, the extent of exploitation and the justification behind poverty wages might have intensified under a capitalist system due to private property rights and the profit motive.
When a business owner hires unskilled labor, they expect these employees to be less productive than those who possess specialized expertise or training. Consequently, businesses tend to pay lower wages to workers who do not contribute significantly to their profits. This notion may seem unfair to some, but it stems from the law of supply and demand. If there’s an oversupply of unskilled labor, employers have the upper hand in setting wages at levels that meet their needs. As a result, many workers accept lower wages because they lack alternative employment opportunities.
In summary, the existence of unskilled labor predates capitalism, and its association with poverty wages is not solely due to this economic system. The concept of unskilled labor reflects tasks that require little training or knowledge, which can be found across various historical periods and societies. Furthermore, the link between low-paid unskilled labor and capitalism arises from market forces that determine wages based on supply and demand. Thus, calling unskilled labor a “capitalist myth” used to justify poverty wages oversimplifies a complex issue that involves factors beyond the scope of any one economic system.
It’s crazy that you needed to write this essay to explain to Lemmy folks that:
- unskilled/low skill labor does in fact exist
- it was not invented by the cApITaLiSm boogeyman
- gets paid lower relative to other positions in the industry because they’re both easily replaceable and on an individual level do not generate as much value to the business as skilled/trained/professional labor
The above things can be true while also saying that ALL labor (unskilled or not) should be treated with respect and basic human decency.
I’m not stanning capitalism here, I’m just tired of Lemmings who’ve either missed all of their basic econ classes or have never tried to run their own business telling me how to allocate wages relative to value.
Executive pay relative to everyone else is out of control, no arguments there. But skilled and professional labor is highly productive relative to unskilled, and should be compensated accordingly.
Exactly. If all labor was valued equally, why would people bother becoming surgeons or air traffic control people? Those can be very high stress jobs and require specialized training to do properly. Higher wages are a huge part of why people choose those professions.
I agree about executive pay, but dismissing unequal pay is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
You really can’t tell when someone’s using ChatGPT to shit out persuasive essays?
The real problem is that for most of western history, unskilled labor was largely performed by slaves.
Funny thing is, you balance earnings and expenses for slaves vs modern workers, and the math vastly favors the slave. But that’s bad for other reasons.
When a business owner hires unskilled labor, they expect these employees to be less productive than those who possess specialized expertise or training.
It may not even be that they are productive on their own, but that they have essential skills or knowledge that allows the business to function. For example: they may be one of few people who know the ins and outs of a specific mission-critical system, and that knowledge may not be easily transferrable.
It’s not just how much you contribute to profits, it’s also how easily you can be replaced. If you contribute a lot to profits, but you can easily find 100 others who can replace you, you’re still not getting a big paycheck.
I have to ask, why are we even working so fucking hard??
What has all of this hard work we’ve been doing accomplished? Our infrastructure is failing. We’re throwing food away. We are wasteful and killing the environment. What has ‘hard work as a virtue’ gotten us?
Can’t we just live our lives??
Check the distribution of wealth in your country and around the world, that’s where the fruits of our work end up. Also just throw-away or downright destructive labor, like making shirts that turn into garbage after one month, or drugs and entertainment products that make people addicted instead of healthy and happy.
It’s not about us. It’s all for our glorious owner class and keeping the dream/lie going🙃
I have to ask, why are we even working so fucking hard??
For 99.99% of the history of our species, we either worked 12+ hours every day including weekends or we literally starved to death. And at times, people starved to death even though they worked that much, because the system stole what they produced.
Dude, I cannot claim to know exactly what you do day-to-day, but generally speaking we are not working hard in 2024.
Having studied the history of work, this is one of those things that sounds super smart, but is actually half-baked nonsense. As hard and crappy as medieval life was, you still work twice as many days in a year as a medieval peasant did. It gets worse the more societies and ways of life you study.
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So we should work hard because our ancestors worked hard?
We should work hard studying so our reading comprehension is better
No. I’m in fact with you on the notion that we should work (as in labor) as little as possible. I think I just disagree with you on how much “as possible” is right now, and what is the best route to that future.
I think automation should eventually lead to a place where no human is doing low- or mid-skill labor. But I have no idea what we’ll do to the people who are unable to do anything else. Perhaps they’ll thrive, but it also looks like they might just turn into zombies. That’s what happens to many people in scandinavic countries, where people practically can just stop working and live off welfare.
LMAO only a commie would downvote this.
Farming is “unskilled” labor?
Holy fuck, come to a farm one day. A single day could encompass anything from forensic accounting, roboticist, veterinarian, or heavy duty mechanic.
that’s uh, that’s part of the point of the meme. a lot of “unskilled” jobs are like that.
Those cunts in their ivory towers need to stop thinking that it’s the 19th century ffs.
Idk man my labour is pretty unskilled, I think anyone could do it really (I’m a middle manager)
But it is still labo–AH AMANAGER! GET IM!
Impostor syndrome?
Nah, just a joke haha. I agree with the meme… Even in the case of us despicable managers.
Yes and no. It’s all about how replaceable you are. If you have a super limited skil and I demand l set like lots of types of engineering, software development, or any other discipline that requires many years of study- I would consider you “skilled”
“Unskilled” roughly translates to “we could teach anyone to do it”. There isn’t a big learning curve to flipping burgers- I’ve flipped plenty myself and it was not a vibe.
They should still be paid a little bong wage either way
One of these things is not like the others.
I respect anybody working a job, especially since ther work environments are almost always worse than mine. However, their qualifications don’t concern me too much. I assume they get the necessary training.
But a bricklayer building my house or office? I think that’s a skilled trade where I want to know more about their experience.
The masons try to keep a low profile even promoting themselves as unskilled because they are the secret power behind the country.
Amazon worker has his dick out. I think he needs more skill first
On the weekends I’ve been working on a concrete foundation for my new fence…talk about unskilled work. I’m having to scrape every ounce of shit I’ve ever learned from my dad to skill this wall into existence. It’s 90% labor, 10% skill. So that tells you how much this should be paid in comparison to my actual desk job… okay fine engineering is way more difficult in skill but like 10% labor so we can still equate stuff to stuff.
It boggles the mind that a CEO could earn much more than several to hundreds to thousands of workers do. That’s just not right. That’s robbery.
It’s also a great tool to keep the slightly less poor turned against the not poor. Oh they don’t have skills, so they don’t DESERVE to get off of welfare when working full time hours.
Right, that’s sound logic. Why can’t we raise the minimum wage to $600/hr? Solves all problems right?
“Skill” in this sense can be boiled down to “replaceability due to automation.” The Industrial Revolution was as much about displacing highly trained, highly skilled craft laborers as it was about increasing raw production numbers. Highly trained craft workers up to that point handled most production of most things that weren’t food. To get around paying these folks for their training and skill, industrialists invested in automation so they could replace people who had literally trained for years in that craft with someone who just walked in off the street. Instead of having a team of carpenters who’d trained for years working in concert on every step of a process, you had a series of individual stations on a production line and only needed to train a new hire against their single specific role in the production line, not the whole process. The breaking-up of labor into small steps shared out across teams, in roles that could be trained in weeks or days instead of years, is kind of one of the core techniques of industrial production.
Because of the relatively less training needed to get started on the production line, factory owners were able to drive down wages substantially across the board and displace craft labor. The industrial revolution boosted profits as much by driving wages down as it did by increasing production, and using a hierarchy of “skill” (where the factory owners are constantly trying to replace workers with leverage) to pay workers less was one of the ways it did that.
Anyways, so yeah. There’s always been work that’s more skilled and less skilled, but the term “skilled labor” sort of derives from this phenomenon during the Industrial Revolution. In that sense, it is totally bullshit meant to drive down wages.
EDIT: Found some snippets on general history sites regarding this process: https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3517
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/industrialization-labor-and-life/
A related art movement, the Arts and Crafts movement, which arose as a response to the impact of industrialization on craft labor: https://www.thecollector.com/industrial-revolution-arts-and-crafts/\
EDIT: A word
